India was the favourite tourist destination for Bangladeshis who topped the list of foreign tourists arrivals (FTAs) (18.09 per cent) followed by USA (12.24 per cent) and UK (9.58 per cent) in April 2016. The FTAs growth was by 10.7 per cent in April 2016 over the same period last year.
The country earned `11,637 crore foreign exchange through tourism in April 2016, said a statement from the Union Tourism Ministry. It was `10,091 crore in April, 2015 and `9,179 crore in April, 2014.
FTAs during April, 2016 were 5.99 lakh as compared to FTAs of 5.42 lakh during the corresponding period of last year and 5.35 lakh in April, 2014. Besides, Bangladesh, USA and UK, among the top 15 source countries were from Sri lanka (3.71 per cent), Malaysia (3.23 per cent), China (3.14 per cent), Australia (3.05 per cent) and Germany (3.02 per cent).
Pakistan was nowhere among the top 15 countries, as per the data available from the Ministry.